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Bits: DragonPass accepted in T5 and Gatwick Regus, 20% off gift cards at Tesco

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News in brief:

DragonPass lounge card now accepted at Heathrow Terminal 5 and Gatwick South Regus

DragonPass, the Asian-based airport lounge access business (a clone of Priority Pass) is beginning to make inroads into the UK market.  With the demise of Airport Angel, they have picked up the lounge access deal offered to Barclays current account holders.

Without telling anyone, DragonPass has launched a deal with the Regus business centre in Terminal 5 arrivals at Heathrow and the South terminal (landside) at Gatwick.  This is a small coup given that Priority Pass does not have such an arrangement.

Regus in Terminal 5 is a business centre more than an airport lounge.  There is no free food but there is a free Nespresso coffee machine.  There are two sofa chairs, plus two ‘pods’ for working and a shared table of six seats best suited for working.  There are no newspapers but there are some magazines.

It is not somewhere to ‘lounge’ but, if you need to work before or after a flight and do not have British Airways lounge access, it is not a bad place to go.  I was working in there yesterday before catching an afternoon flight to Finland (more on that soon).

20% discount on selected Tesco gift cards

Tesco is currently offering a 20% discount on selected gift cards via their online gift card shop.  It is not clear if this offer is also available instore.

The retailers included are:

  • Pizza Express
  • iTunes
  • Mitchell & Butlers
  • New Look
  • Monsoon
  • Accessorize

The deal is only available on ‘plastic’ gift cards and not digital gift codes.  This means that you must pay for postage which will add at least £1.50.

The key thing to remember is that you will receive 150 Clubcard points for every £50 you spend on gift cards (excluding Tesco-branded cards).  That is 360 Avios.  You need to spend £50 after taking into account the 20% discount and your order must be in multiples of £50 – ie if you spend £100 there must be a theoretical way of separating the order into two lots of £50, otherwise you just get one lot of bonus points.

Pizza Express cards come in a £20 denomination and the others as £25.  The cheapest route is therefore 2 x £20 Pizza Express and 1 x £25 from elsewhere, total £65, which reduces to £52.  Postage adds £1.50 or more if you want recorded delivery.  This means that you are paying £53.50 for £60 of gift cards plus 360 Avios points.

The deal ends on 22nd November.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Tesco Clubcard

Comments (57)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Gideon says:
    11 Nov11 November 05:08

    You can buy 120 of iTunes codes for £100 as long as you select 5 25 vouchers. No postal charges for that.

    • Gideon says:
      11 Nov11 November 05:09

      125!

    • Gideon says:
      11 Nov11 November 05:09

      Actually 125!

    • Jason says:
      11 Nov11 November 06:55

      Or buy 5 20 PE cards and 1 iTunes 25 card, which is what I did yesterday when they had run out of £50 paid Visa cards 🙂

      • reds says:
        11 Nov11 November 07:33

        O/T Does anyone have problem topping up their Amazon account with the paid VISA cards?
        Half the time, it doesn’t accept it but it seems random.

        • Mark says:
          12 Nov12 November 14:29

          If you’re trying to top up exactly to the value of the card it may fail if Amazon puts through an authorization hold (a temporary £1 test transaction) first. That will eventually be reversed of course, but in the meantime your £50 top-up will fail since only £49 is available on the card.

    • Jamie says:
      12 Nov12 November 18:30

      In my nearest Tesco Extra they do PE gift cards in £20s and £30s. Last night I bought one of each (costing me £40 after the discount) along with a £10 Starbucks gift card to round up my spend to £50 to get the 150 CC points. Sweet.

  • Gareth Edwards says:
    11 Nov11 November 05:42

    Saw this offer in my local superstore yesterday, so I would assume it to be available in all stores which will save on the postage.

  • harry says:
    11 Nov11 November 06:24

    You can get the Dragonpass x6 lounge entries for £13.50 http://www.barclays.co.uk/TravelPlusPack/TravelPlusPack/P1242609324028

    That’s just 1 month’s insurance but if you cancel after 1 month, the Dragonpass cards remain valid for 12 months. = £2.25/ visit.

    • ComeFlyWithMe123 says:
      11 Nov11 November 09:55

      Hi Harry,

      Have you confirmation that the DragonPass card (and the unused 6 free visits) remain valid for the 12 months even though you cancel the Travel Plus Pack?

      • ComeFlyWithMe123 says:
        11 Nov11 November 10:06

        Just checked the T & C’s (which of course are never set in stone. All depends on the process but…)

        Should you choose to cancel your Qualifying
        Account or switch to a non-qualifying account,
        your membership will be immediately
        cancelled and your Free Visit allocation
        removed. Any pre-paid additional airport
        lounge visits which you have purchased and
        not used will be refunded to you

        • harry says:
          11 Nov11 November 20:01

          Yep but you wouldn’t cancel the account (ie current account) – you would stop the travel insurance pack. They advertise the travel pack as being flexible product that can be switched on or of as per your needs.

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:
    11 Nov11 November 06:54

    £53.50 for £65 worth of cards

  • Chris says:
    11 Nov11 November 07:00

    DragonPass is included as part of the package of benefits you get from having a Regus office (we have just signed up for a Regus office in Welwyn so spent some time reading the bumf!) Assume that is how they are getting the Regus tie up.

  • vindaloo says:
    11 Nov11 November 07:47

    If you want to go to Pizza Express you’re probably better off converting Clubcard vouchers to Pizza Express tokens at 1 to 4.

    • Frenske says:
      11 Nov11 November 08:22

      I am not 100% sure, but the PE gift card is like a payment card and you can use it with tokens.

      You could use the tokens to pay for the food and the gift card to pay for the drinks and whatever is left of food bill after tokens.

      • Simmo says:
        11 Nov11 November 08:56

        If Pizza Express is your thing I suggest a Tastecard + gift card from Tesco.

        • Kai says:
          11 Nov11 November 09:10

          No need for the Tastecard. PE has permanent 25% – 40% off offers!

          • Jason says:
            11 Nov11 November 09:19

            Tastecard offers 241 on every course, mon-thu, the PE offers have lots of restrictions ime. Not accepted on piccolo menu unfortunately.

          • Simmo says:
            11 Nov11 November 09:53

            I’ve also had Tastecard work for Pizza Express over weekends too – depends on their offers at the time. the terms seem to always change!

    • Brian says:
      11 Nov11 November 09:53

      Definitely not. Those Tesco coupons can’t be stacked with ANY offers. That means that they are only useful on a Saturday, when neither tastecard nor the various voucher codes are valid. If you tend to eat at Pizza Express on a Saturday, okay, but otherwise there are better uses for your CC points.

      • Frenske says:
        11 Nov11 November 13:34

        … and Friday and Sunday afternoon.

        Basically those PE offers are only working when you normally wouldn’t go to the restaurant. IMO PE tokens are a good value.

  • MMc says:
    11 Nov11 November 08:03

    Hello,
    I’ve just tried to log on to the site, I needed to register as it didn’t take my usual tescos password. I was about to complete my transaction but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to register your clubcard details. What am I missing?

    • Simmo says:
      11 Nov11 November 08:58

      That’s the only reason I’ve never done it before too.

      Seems its not Tesco supplying the cards, I fail to see how they link up with your CC account.

    • Funtime says:
      11 Nov11 November 09:38

      You enter your clubcard number right at the end I think from memory. Points post a week or so later.

  • Bill says:
    11 Nov11 November 08:16

    “This means that you are paying £53.50 for £60 of gift cards plus 360 Avios points” you mean £65?

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